


a quiet riot

by puffy_pastry



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Angst, Gen, Jaejoog Junsu and Yoochun are all mentioned, Not Beta Read, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puffy_pastry/pseuds/puffy_pastry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath, Yunho is not okay. But he will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a quiet riot

Sitting impatiently on a comfortable sofa, never been more uncomfortable in his life, Yunho waits for the call.

The urge to bite his nails is strong but he’s managed to resist for this long, so what’s a few more minutes? His nails have gotten rather long though. Maybe he should bite them. Or maybe he should find a nail cutter and clip them. That sounds better. He scans the room, hoping to find a nail cutter, thinking about how perfect his evenly cut nails will l-

“You’re thinking too much hyung.” A voice pierces through Yunho’s reverie.

The thought of finding a nail cutter slips from his mind as he glances up at Changmin. The younger boy looks so calm, so collected, with his eyes glued to the TV and the remote held in a soft grip.

_How can he be so calm?_

“Say, Changmin-ah…” Yunho pauses and waits for the maknae to say something but he remains unmoved so Yunho continues. “Don’t you think my nails h-”

The phone rings.

Yunho lunges towards the table and grab it with both hands. It rings once again, buzzing in his palms but all he can do is stare.

How does he answer a call he knows will change his world forever?

He doesn’t. Changmin does.

The maknae leans down and presses the button to receive the call before straightening up and turning his attention back to the TV again.

_How can he be so calm?_

With trembling hands, Yunho bring the phone up to his ear. “H-hello?” He manages to stammer out.

There’s something lodged in his throat. It’s been there for a while now but all his previous attempts at gulping it down have resulted in failure. Whatever it is, it’s slowly crawling up his throat now. He’s afraid it might be his heart.

“We lost the case.” The manager says in a grim voice. He swears under his breath, a string of curses not really aimed at anyone, and then growls: “We lost the goddamned case!” He sounds like he’s in shock; like the concept of losing wasn’t a scenario that had ever occurred to him. “We’ll have a conference tomorrow. Get some rest. I’ll be there in the morning.” With that said, he hangs up.

Yunho remains frozen, unable to move, with the phone still pressed against his ear. Behind him, Changmin begins to move. Yunho hears the soft noise as the maknae places the remote on the table and then stands up.

“Good riddance.” He mutters as he walks towards the TV.

Yunho watches him switch the TV off; unable to believe the words he’s just uttered.

His eyes are blank, there’s no sadness or shock or even hatred inside them. His mouth is set in a straight line; there is no curve to his lips that could reveal what he’s feeling. In this moment, he’s nothing more than an empty slate and all Yunho can think is:

_How can he be so calm?_

 

When Yunho’s mom calls, demanding to know what’s going to happen, Yunho tells her the truth. “I don’t know.” He says, his voice barely audible.

Despite this, his mom still repeats the question like she’s hoping if she asks enough times, he’ll magically have the answer. Eventually his sister manages to get the phone away from her and she’s like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

“You’ll be okay.” She tells Yunho in a voice so firm he can’t not believe her.

“I’ll be okay.” He repeats. And he continues repeat the words in his head like a mantra until they lose their meaning and turn into nothing more than hollow words.

_I’m okay…_

 

One day, in a bid to escape the almost eerie silence that has descended in the dorms, Yunho sneaks out in disguise.

It feels a little bit like relief when he walks down the street and no one screams his name. And so, he continues walking, hands tucked into his jacket pockets and face concealed under its hood.

It isn’t long before he spots a girl wearing a shirt with the five of them printed on it. She’s sitting with three other girls, two of them who’re also wearing it as well. He observes them and thinks about how long it will be before those products will be pulled from the line. Probably not that long.

The three girls with the shirts look absolutely heartbroken, like their world has been torn asunder. One of them is loudly wailing ‘why’ over and over again, oblivious or uncaring of the stares from the passing strangers.

Another is patting her on the back, but she looks like she’s about to burst into tears at any given moment.

The other is shaking her head in disbelief and she is also the one who whispers: I don’t understand – I just don’t understand. They were at the top of the world. They were stars! They were bigger than s-”

The one who’d been wailing abruptly stops wailing to cry: “They were the Rising God of the East!”

This is when the girl who isn’t wearing the shirt says: “Well where else were they gonna go? There’s no place but down when you’re at the top.”

Yunho walks away then, turning around to head back to the dorms, but those words stay with him for a long time.

 

The first time Yunho hears them on the radio is when he’s being driven to an interview. For a second – a foolish, stupid, little second – he wonders which song of theirs this is. And then reality comes crashing down and he’s in a car with Changmin and his manager and Jaejoog, Junsu and Yoochun aren’t part of his world anymore.

He barely gets to hear Jaejoog’s voice before the manager is demanding the driver to ‘turn this shit off’. Yunho bites his tongue and resist the urge to tell the man off. There’s no use arguing and even if there was, he’s seen enough arguments to last you a lifetime. Although if Changmin had said something, he would have too.

But Changmin is staring at the horizon out the window. There had been something in the sky that had caught his eye when he’d climbed into the car and it still captivates him. Yunho peers out the window and sees nothing but darkness. The stars aren’t out tonight and neither is the Moon. It hides behind gray clouds, keeping its light hidden like a secret.

Yunho wonders if Changmin is doing the same. He hasn’t seen that mischievous spark in the maknae’s eyes for a long time now, since this began in fact. He’s been so quiet, so withdrawn that even interviewers have noticed. Of course, they’re strictly forbidden to go down that line of questioning.

Yunho’s eyes fall from the dark sky onto Changmin. He’s as expressionless as ever but his eyes are flitting about, still focused intensely on the sky, and what is it that he’s looking at? Yunho stares at him for a few more seconds, trying to figure out the puzzle, before giving up. As he settles back into his seat, he wonders if Changmin’s looking for that star the five of them created.

If he is, then he’s looking in the wrong place.

That star came crashing down ages ago.

 

A few weeks later, Yunho opens the door to the dorm and is met with the aftermath of a tornado. Shattered glass lies on the floor, glinting in the dim light of the Sun poking through the curtains. Cushions from the sofas are strewn about the room, some ripped with their stuffing falling out. There are several upturned chairs and books with their pages ripped out, lying on the floor like confetti.

For a second, he thinks he’s been burgled, and he pulls out his phone to call the police, but then he hears a muffled sob and his eyes fall onto the whirlwind that’s caused this destruction.

Changmin sits in a corner, curled into a ball. Yunho can count the times the maknae’s cried in front of him on his hand and he can count the times he’s done it in public with just one finger. But never, in all the long years Yunho’s known him, has he seen Changmin like this.

The phone slips from Yunho’s hand as he runs toward Changmin and the sound of glass cracking follows him as he crosses the room without a care. If he hadn’t been wearing shoes, his feet would have been torn to shreds. He kneels down beside Changmin and his hand hovers over the maknae for a second as he hesitates but then he’s pulling the younger boy into his arms and holding him against his chest.

Changmin leeches onto Yunho and he cries openly. The damn has finally broken, and Yunho can feel Changmin’s tears run down his neck but he knows there is nothing he can do to fix this. So he holds the maknae tighter and swears to never let him go.

Yunho doesn’t know how long he stays there, knees slowly going numb, but eventually Changmin’s cries taper off and he’s just dead weight in his arms. He holds the younger boy a while longer because he knows he’s all he has right now and thinks:

_I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…_

In time, Yunho begins moving, gently gathering Changmin into his arms and carrying him to bed. He tucks the maknae in, wrapping the blanket around his body, and all the while he does not stir. After Yunho’s settled him in, he sits down beside him and lean down to kiss his forehead.

“We’re okay.” He whispers, he kisses him once more and then head out to clean the mess.

When Changmin wakes up and cautiously walks in to a clean room and to find Yunho watching TV, he doesn’t say anything. Yunho looks at him, at his eyes that are still red and his face that reveals nothing, and he doesn’t say a thing either.

But Changmin sits down beside him and gingerly rests his head on him shoulder, closing that distance that had begun growing between them and Yunho never thinks about how Changmin can be so calm ever again.

 

Every now and then, Yunho’s thumb hovers over their names and he wonders what would happen if he pressed ‘Call’. Would they pick up? Would they let it go to voicemail? Would a lady in a cool voice inform the number is no longer in service?

He doesn’t know. He’s never gone through with it.

It’s happening less often now.

He’s so busy these days. There’s so much happening. New choreographies to learn, new songs to sing and it’s hard and there will always be something lacking but Changmin’s right by his side and the fans still stand strong.

So when the nights grow long and even seeing Changmin smile still leaves him feeling hollow, Yunho hunches over a laptop with his earphones plugged in and secretly watches their MVs and their interviews.

It hurts. God, it hurts. It hurts like falling from the stars and slamming onto the ground.

But down here, at the bottom, he’s starting over again. He’s striving onward, he’s living.

And he hopes they’re okay, he hopes they’re happy.

Yunho’s not. But he will be.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently stumbled upon K-Pop and TVXQ is the best! I wish I had known about them earlier but at least I have Youtube to glimpse in the past. And glimpse into the past I did, and ow. It really hurts to see them all so happy and playing about. I'm still to learn their personalities so I apologize if they seem OOC.
> 
> This is my first fic for TVXQ and I did write it in second person pov first but decided to change it, Also it's not beta read so please tell me if there are any mistakes.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all like it.


End file.
